Reunions Maintain Family Ties for Masonic Home Children

Reunions are important to the children who lived at The Masonic Home and the 2009 reunion of the ex-student association will take place on The Masonic Home Campus in Fort Worth. Home kids still refer to themselves as "family" and stay together with annual reunions, newsletters.

Last year the annual reunion was held in Galveston, Texas, and author Jim Dent was a guest and announced that Mike Barr had obtained the movie rights and Barr was in the process of putting a team together.

"If anyone can make that movie a reality, Mike Barr is the man," Dent said to the group in Galveston.

The gathering on the campus featured in the photo above was not a regular reunion. 12 Productions team members Mike Barr, Matt Barr and Ryan Ross (Matt and Ryan are at the far right in the above photo) worked on production aspects of developing the 12 Mighty Orphans story when they brought Home Kids back to the Masonic Home in mid-2008. They brought in two experienced film guys including Michael Piccola to photograph and video the day (see earlier blog post, Home Kids Return) as they worked to collect material and background needed to take the story from book to movie.

Characters in the story, posed in front of The Masonic Home & School sign at the entry of the campus, are, left to right: Miller Moseley, his sister Dorothy "Dot" Moseley, Doug Lord and his wife (who was also a Home Kid) Opal Lord, C.D. Sealey and Norman Strange.

The Masonic Home closed in 2005 and by 2007 the buildings were boarded up and abandoned, but it still remains a central place to those who experienced life there. All Church Home is the new owner of the core Masonic Home property. Mike Barr and Russ Morton, grandson of H.N. "Rusty" Russell and a partner in 12 productions, met with the All Church Home officials this month.

Paul Underwood, President of Ex-Masonic Home Student Association said in the most recent Ex-Student Association newsletter that the students "still mourn the loss of our Home" but most were pleased to see the core campus is being renovated and will be used for helping needy kids.

The ex-student association is holding the 2009 business meeting in the Dining Hall and the students will tour the campus that Sat. a.m. before the meeting.